Advances Of The Malaria Vaccine

Advances of the malaria vaccine

Over the last seventy years they have been reduced, after much effort, areas with active malaria cases around the world. The first advances corresponding to this topic date in North America and most of the west of Europe;which have presented these advances thanks to economic and social development, which in turn has allowed the use of more resources to combat the transmission of the disease. Initially;During the fifties and sixties, the transmission of malaria was reduced by the use of insecticide: dichloro-difenil-tricloroethane (DDT), and thanks to the various prevention campaigns, the number of patients was reducedconsiderably;as well as the transmission routes.

Unfortunately after these great advances, there was a decline in the resources destined to combat this pathology;So the appearance of strains resistant to established antimalaric medications and insecticides that were being used, creating as a serious consequence, the increase in cases around the world;mainly affecting the areas of Africa, Asia and South America, where the population surrounding pregnant infants and women is frequently affected.

It should be noted that, due to this excessive increase in cases in recent years, more resources have been allocated to combat infection, leading to the development of various investigations to be able to obtain a vaccine. The most developed advances so far is the vaccine: RTS, s/AS02A, which are directed to combat the pre-en-plasmodium falciparum phase, which was developed by Glaxo-Smithkline Biological (Rixenart, Bbelgic).

According to the World Health Organization, malaria is a mainly exposed affectation in 21 countries of the American continent;Within those that stand out as the most affected: Belize, Brazil, Bolivia, Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, El Salvador, Guayana, French Guayana, Honduras, Haiti, Nicaragua, Panama, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Paraguay, Peru, Venezuela and Surinam.

After the program destined to eradicate malaria was discharged, strategies or monitoring protocols were established to carry systemic control and avoid the rise of the transmitted cases;Therefore, an agreement was created in which the following parameters were established: rapid diagnosis, immediate treatment, prevention and protection measures, the ability to forecast and contain the epidemic, and the strengthening of local health capacity to inform theirsettlers about all the aforementioned measures, as well as the ways in which the disease can be prevented.

From the great research work carried out by scientist Ruth Nussenzweig and his collaborators in 1967, in which it was explained that the immunization of rodents with sporozoítos de P. Berghei and these when treated with X -rays were protected from the disease, it was shown that obtaining a malaria vaccine, was an object with a future vision. 

Therefore, from this advance, various investigations have been carried out to complete the work carried out by Nussenzweig. One of the main ones is the RTS antimalaric vaccine, s/AS02A prepared by a group of researchers led by Pedro L. Alonso, who recently presented the results of his investigation. This vaccine is based on the circumsorozoite protein of the NF54 strain, clone 3d7 of P. Falciparum. And despite the obtaining of relatively low protection levels that it offers, according to the diverse populations that were studied, the opinion that, in the coming years, and with the development of greater scientific advances, can be achieved, can be reinforced, can be achievedWith obtaining the malaria vaccine.